September Events: Routines & Interruptions

new writing and storytelling nights + our first collected poetry zine

by Kent Rogowski

Hi friends,

I hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend and are, as per tradition, no longer wearing white, though when you can start wearing it again continues to be a mystery.

This month we have four Drink ‘N Drafts and the second iteration of our newest event, Word for Word, where we invite an author to read and then use those readings as our writing prompt. For September I’m excited to announce we’ll be joined by the incomparable Téa Obreht, who’ll be reading from her novel The Morningside. (RSVP here or below!)

We’re also back with the next Club Motte Storytelling, where we’ll be telling true stories to the theme of Reunion.

In other exciting news, I just got the copies of our first annual Collected Poems zine printed by our friends at Directangle Press and they are everything I hoped for and more. This zine is a selection of the assembled poems made at Drink ‘N Drafts in 2023, photographed, transcribed, and paired with the images that inspired them. Buy your copy or pick one up at our next event!

And while not technically a September event, I’ll be returning to Center for Fiction for another round of Writing Without Thinking on Saturday, October 12th. I’m grateful that this often fills up quickly, so be sure to grab a seat if you’re interested.

Scroll for more info on all our upcoming events and to see this month’s creative prompt, which is roughly 35% inspired by the Kent Rogowski image above.

—Josh

The theme for September’s Club Motte Storytelling Night is Reunion.

Reunions come in many forms, whether they’re with family, friends, colleagues, or lovers. There are sudden, surprising reunions and long-planned get-togethers. There are the reunions you look forward to (“oh hello!) and the ones you dread (“oh, hello.”) There are even those that reunite you with your former self, a hobby, a memory. Think of a reunion that happened to you—of any shape, size, or degree of importance—then tell us all about it.

Artshack Cafe, Bed-Stuy
Wednesday, September 25th from 7-10pm
RSVP to learn more and reserve your seat!

Writing Events

We’re hosting one Word for Word in September, featuring Téa Obreht. Her novel The Morningside is one of my favorites from this year and I can’t wait to hear her read and be in conversation with her about it at our event.

P&T Knitwear, LES
September 22nd from 5-7pm (RSVP)

We're also hosting four Drink 'N Drafts—

Book Club Bar, East Village
Wednesday, September 11th from 8-10pm (RSVP)

Center for Fiction, Fort Greene
Sunday, September 15th from 5-7pm (RSVP)

WORD Bookstore, Greenpoint
Thursday, September 19th from 7-9pm (RSVP)

Land to Sea, Williamsburg
Thursday, September 26th from 7-9pm (RSVP)

by Kent Rogowski

September’s Prompt

I used to lead summer abroad trips for high school students. There’d often be long bus rides where the kids would get restless and demand entertainment. Eventually, after Eye Spy lost its shine, I’d resort to a theatre exercise I learned in college. I’d tell the kids I was thinking of a story (I wasn’t) and had them ask yes/no questions about it. Whatever they asked, I answered ‘no’ to the first two questions and ‘yes’ to the third and repeated that pattern until the story was finished.

“Is it about kids?” “Nope.”
“So it’s about adults?” “Nah.”
“Are there animals?” “Sure are!”

A few years later I found the same game in Keith Johnstone’s Impro, a great book of improvisational theatre exercises that work just as well for your writing (or any creative practice). He talks about the panic most people feel when they’re asked to invent something from scratch and how reframing the approach can offer a way to arrive at the same results more comfortably.

That reframe can be a way to avoid feeling responsible for your own imagination (as it does with guessing the contents of someone else’s story) or it can be a way to add guidelines that make the blank page feel less intimidating and more like an equation to be solved.

August’s prompt, also from Johnstone’s Impro, is one of those equations.

“If I say ‘Make up a story’, then most people are paralysed. If I say ‘describe a routine and then interrupt it’, people see no problem.” —Keith Johnstone, Impro

Describe a routine and then interrupt it. So simple! But, I think, so much easier and approachable. And the result is often more weird and interesting than if you tried to plot out a story the way we’re all taught to think we’re supposed to.

Try it for a new scene, a new poem, or as a structure to a new story. Or apply it to an existing project that’s gone stale. What are the routines you’ve already established? An action, a relationship dynamic, a way of life. A routine can be anything. So can the interruption.

I think this idea applies past narrative and performance art, too. Kent Rogowski has a lovely and disorienting series where he combines different puzzle sets that have the same shape pieces, turning two otherwise commonplace images—a horse, a tree—into something entirely new. The routine of looking at a horse is interrupted and we’re invited to experience it with fresh eyes. What routines are happening in your work? In how you make your work? What could happen if you interrupt them?

by Kent Rogowski